


No Length of String

by westernredcedar



Series: the thing that needs to be said [1]
Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drug Abuse, Intimacy, M/M, Missing Scenes, Past Violence, Simon POV, Suicide, They are dead after all, What's going on with Simon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-10 21:56:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2041635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westernredcedar/pseuds/westernredcedar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The most shocking thing about being alive again is that Simon doesn’t hate it the second time round.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talking/Listening

**Author's Note:**

> I love this show. I love everything about it. Everyone should be watching it. *nodnod* Go now. Watch. I'll wait.  
> Okay, so here's my first attempt at airing some of my Simon and Kieren headcanon, especially the angst-fest that is Simon's life.  
> Now complete!

_“Sometimes no length of string is long enough to say the thing that needs to be said. In such cases all the string can do, in whatever its form, is conduct a person’s silence.” -Nicole Krauss_

 

Simon had always despised being alive. 

He remembers being six years old, staring out the window at the pointless line of trees down the lane, and knowing, for certain, that he should not be feeling sad. Mum pet his hair and told him it was normal to feel glum, while Dad gave him a squeeze round the shoulders and said, “Liven up, will ye,” and read him a long confusing poem that sounded like music.

He remembers long days locked in his room as a teenager, curled in his bed, music blaring into his headphones, trying to block out all the other noise in his head telling him he’s a failure, a nothing, that life isn’t really meant for him. He remembers the notes his mother would slide under the door, asking him if he wanted supper. He remembers swiping his father's books of poetry and reading them until the pages were dog-eared and ruined.

He remembers Sundays, the slog of church, the numbing repetition, pungent scent, music. His family front and center, and his rebel brain screaming _Lies!_ at the old priest, even as he took the wafer in his mouth, drank the blood.

He remembers papering the walls of his room with New York. 

Simon remembers his first hit of meth, with this girl, Cora? Cara? Something. First in a long line who mistook his distance for love. Shame, really, but how could they know he hadn't been able to feel anything for years? The drugs, though. Shit. They took all the doubt and pain away, so long as another hit was coming soon.

There's a lot Simon doesn't remember about what came after that. Shouting matches with Dad, sleeping rough for weeks, hitching rides to Dublin, trying to hide his most violent shakes so that friendly folk would pick him up and buy his shit. He'd always been a good talker. His Mum would say, "Our Simon could talk God out of the deed to Eden." Simon talks his way into every substance, every sin, everywhere, talks his way all the way to New York (That's with another girl, poor Donna, although by then Simon is fucking every junkie boy he meets, because it feels great, and who the hell cares if he lives or dies. He doesn't lie to her.) 

If he never stops moving, his brain never has time to catch him up. 

There's a brief time in New York when it might be getting better. He meets Caleb. Caleb wants to help him get clean, Caleb is beautiful- dark, dark skin and huge green eyes, Simon fucking falls into those eyes- and Caleb loves him. But Simon can't do it, without the drugs his enemy brain is still there waiting for him. It's over when Caleb finds him, high and bleeding, in bed with two prostitutes. Simon never does anything halfway. Caleb's final gift to Simon is a plane ticket home.

He never tells his parents he's returned. Three years pass, according to the calendar, and Simon can't remember a single specific day, until the end. The last day, he remembers that. He woke up that day, and knew, clear as crystal, he wasn't going to wake up again. That final needle, and then quiet. Nothing.

Simon has to guess what happens next, of course. Mum and Dad coming for him, bringing him home. Someone (undertaker?) cutting off his long hair, and now he's stuck with the parent-pleasing coffin look for eternity. Did they convince Father Clement to say a few words over his drug ravaged body? Did they cry? Who even came to see him off? Were they all, as Simon has always assumed, relieved? 

It should have been over. He was a mistake, a living thing that didn't want the gift, an error in the judgment of genes and divinity. 

But then, Simon came back. 

*

The most shocking thing about being alive again is that Simon doesn't hate it the second time round.

He thankfully doesn't have a single memory from the rising, not even a grainy image or a troubling feeling in his gut. He spends hours, days, hearing the dull, repetitive rising stories of his kind, hopeful that no one will ever get cheeky enough ask him (disciple and all, very intimidating) to share his story in return. He doesn't have one. It's a blackness, a nothing time, more gone than all the days he lost on his longest binges. Thank Christ. Knowing what he did is horror enough without any memory of it all. 

When he was young, Simon had been fascinated by the idea of Hell. His imagined Hell was a child’s fantasy- fiery pits and caverns and screams and a cartoonish devil with a pitchfork obsessed with suffering and punishment. Then he'd died, and there was no Hell, no punishment. There was nothing. So Simon considers his time at Norfolk and...just after...as his own personal Hell, well earned. In fact, for a long time, he is certain that this entire fucked up world he's been brought back to is just some punishing afterlife that old Mrs. Trilly at Sunday School never could have dreamed up.

There's a difference though. In this world, Hell though it is, Simon wants to live. 

Maybe it's something about the drug he's being given, repairing his broken brain. Maybe it's that the other drugs don't work anymore (he tried, every way he could, as soon as his dad kicked him out), or that for the first time ever he feels better without them. 

When he puts on his mousse and his contacts and looks in the mirror, he sees his old self, the addict, the user, the failed son. He likes the new, chiseled down version of himself, stripped, bleached clean. He doesn't recognize himself this way, maybe he's something new?

He finds people who take him in, value him, who like listening to him talk again, who love that he rejects his cover up, think he's doing it for far more noble reasons. He doesn't correct them. Instead, Simon talks. He talks and talks until he starts to believe his own shit. Talks his way right into the inner circle, talks an entire commune together, talks people in love with him. He's powerful, without the drugs, full of the words of the prophet. Better than drugs. People love him. It doesn't really matter that he can't love them back. They don't even know. At least there is purpose, meaning. He believes. What he's doing matters, at last.

Then, he meets Kieren.

*

Simon doesn't even notice Kieren at first. He's just another recruit, Amy's troubled friend, who he needs to charm, woo, and bring into the ULA fold. Simple, it's what he does now. There's a formula: bare skin and white eyes, sensitive tone of voice, quote a little Yeats, talk injustice, hit them with the prophet's message of hope. Easy. And if he needs to, he can always pull out the guitar.

Kieren doesn't go easy, but Simon doesn't care at first. His resistance is of the usual sort- _don't rock the boat, it's easier to pretend_ \- Simon's heard this line before. (He might need the guitar.) But then Kieren walks right between Simon and a gun, at the pub, just does it, without fear, and in a very humbling way, Simon knows Kieren's not doing it to save him from being shot. Kieren doesn't even know him. He's doing it...well, he's doing it for himself, to stand up for himself, to do what's right for all of them. It's brave and stupid and...new.

A light turns on inside of Simon at that moment, like a warm zap of electricity that resets his circuits, and wakes him up. Without planning it, he says Kieren's name out loud. Kieren turns those big, dark eyes on him in, what? Judgment? Disappointment? Envy?

Oh Christ, is he glad to be alive. 

*

If Simon could have requested help from the government in his recruiting efforts, he would have suggested the Give Back Scheme himself. After that, the undead literally flock to him, the Pied Piper of Roarton. They're so easy: throw a party, remind them how to be human, how to feel pleasure, then talk to them some more, get their stories. Follow the mission, find the first risen.

It's Kieren he can't stop thinking of, though, Kieren he builds the fence for, Kieren he waits at the bonfire for, stays sober for. Kieren, who doesn't even notice, who hides his beautiful scars and who just wants out of Roarton, wants Simon to help him get out. Simon wants to say something real ( _"What do you see when you look at me?"_ ), not just his same tired rhetoric trying to bring Kieren over, but he can't remember what sort of thing he is supposed to say instead. Maybe he never knew? When Simon reaches over and touches Kieren's hand, he knows he shouldn't be able to feel it, but he does, he feels it in his bones, and for a moment, he thinks Kieren feels it, too. 

Jesus Christ, he's distracting. Like a guilty schoolboy, Simon goes back to the basics, reciting his purpose, his creed, hearing the truth of the prophet's words in his head, like a boy saying his Hail Mary's after confession. Picks a fight with Kieren even, at the GPs, just to be rid of the distraction. _"I don't lead people on."_ He doesn't. Hasn't. Simon doesn't need Kieren for this mission. Better without, in fact. Better alone. Talk talk talk. 

When Kieren kisses him, Simon dissolves, it all dissolves, his whole life, in a slow swirl that starts in his lips and ends in his toes and out the top of his head, and for the first time ever, _ever_ , Simon feels every cell in his body and knows he's meant to be there, meant to be a living being on planet Earth. That he’s not a mistake.

* 

Amy is home, of course. When they kiss. It’s late. Simon doesn't need to breathe, but he does need to catch his breath, so after a long minute of coming apart at Kieren's hands, he steps back and looks. Time slows for him, let's him. He needs to remember this, every detail.

Kieren's a mess, lopsided and furious, missing a contact, mousse patchy and smeared. He's gorgeous. As Kieren looks at the floor and opens his mouth to speak, Simon raises a finger to his lips, nods his head towards Amy's room, then grabs Kieren's hand and pulls him outside, into the dark night. Fringe benefit of being undead: cold is meaningless. Once they are outside, Kieren shakes his hand free of Simon's grasp and strides off, stiff and angry, behind the bungalows, out into the wilderness below. Simon watches him for a moment, mind full of sparks, then follows, several paces behind. 

The lights of the buildings fade. The sky is dense with stars, and Simon lets himself look up at them for the first time in years. The universe seems suddenly bigger, immense. Kieren stops and leans up against a large outcropping of stone, arms crossed. He's looking up (at the stars as well?).

Simon takes a seat next to him, but not too close. Not touching. He can't feel that again yet. His body is still thrumming, like it’s trying to be alive. 

"Kieren." Simon keeps his voice so low, isn't sure how to approach this one. "What’s happened? It’s good you came to me. We can help..."

Kieren's mismatched eyes turn to him. Ah yes, there's the disappointment. Unmistakable. "Don't talk,” Kieren says.

"What?" Simon is at a loss. 

Kieren shrugs his jacket further around himself, even though Simon knows his can't be feeling the chill. "Don't talk. When you talk, it's all a bunch of bullshit." 

"Jesus, Kieren."

"No, it is, Simon. It is." Kieren leans in then, right in and grabs the back of Simon's neck before he can react, and kisses him again, possessive and hard and full of...oh Jesus, Simon is not ready. Kieren pulls back a fraction, and whispers into Simon's lips, "What I need is for you to listen."

Their foreheads are touching, and Simon can feel how, under his confident veneer, Kieren's hands are shaking. Jesus Christ, listen. Listen. He reaches up and cups his hands around Kieren's cheeks (and he can feel it, how can he feel it?) and then nods, just a little, looking right in Kieren's eyes, and doesn't say a word. 

Kieren lets out a long sigh and then starts talking. About Rick and his dad, mostly, but also about his sister, about her sparing his life, about the girl he knows he killed (ate, he says _ate_ ), about Gary and Freddie, and how many times he has had to step in front of a gun. It’s a long, long exhalation of words, and Simon holds Kieren's hand in both of his, and just listens, not even making a sound, and nothing else is important in this world except listening. 

When it is quiet again for a time, and the stars are even brighter and the Milky Way stretches before them, Kieren turns to Simon with a little sad smile. He looks better, calmer. “So.” 

Simon feels like he’s just been given the perfect gift, and he can’t even speak to show his gratitude. He just nods and holds Kieren’s hand tighter.

“Sorry. You can talk now.” Kieren nudges him on the shoulder, which reminds Simon to smile. (Smile, that's what you do when you're gloriously happy, yes?) “What about you?”

Simon lowers his head. Kieren is too much, he can’t possibly live up to him, doesn’t deserve this. “I can’t...I can’t do that.”

Kieren looks at him, and Simon can see his confusion. “Do what?”

“What you just did.” Simon can talk, talk all day and night, but not like Kieren, not naked and brave and without motive. There’s too many hard things that he can never say out loud.

Kieren is still staring at him, for a long moment, but then he takes his free hand and runs it along Simon’s cheek before settling them into another slow, prying, endless kiss that unfixes Simon from the ground. When it ends, and Simon floats back down to the solid granite, Kieren says, “That’s all right, though. We’ve got time, eh?”

Kieren stands then and reclaims his hand, looks out at the darkness. Simon isn’t sure what comes next, Kieren has him entirely off his program. ULA, prophet, first risen, it’s all gone, zapped away by an electrical tide of feeling. Without warning, Kieren turns and presses Simon back against the stone, their entire bodies flush, only the layers of wool and cotton between them, Kieren’s hands restless along the skin at Simon’s waist (Simon swears he can feel his touch again, Christ), his face nestled into Simon’s neck. God, Simon is suddenly deeply aware that he has not been with anyone, ever, when he’s not high. 

“My parents will be frantic. I should get home.” Said into Simon’s shoulder.

Simon gets a little of his own confidence back, grabs Kieren by the beltloops and leans back, finding his lips and trying for a kiss that says, _don’t you fucking run away from this_ or at least _this is a beginning, not an end, you understand._ Then he tries some words, “Stop in tomorrow. At the bungalow.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

“Maybe.”

“If ye can.” They are still pressed together, arms intertwined, and it takes everything in Simon’s two lives to let Kieren go, push himself up from the rock. He is leaned over, dusting himself off, when he feels ( _feels_ ) Kieren brush a kiss on the back on his neck and whisper, “Simon...yeah. ‘Night.”

Kieren lurches off, not the same way they came, but across the darkness to where he must live, to where his family must be waiting for him. Simon stands under the stars, watching, until Kieren’s lanky form disappears into the shadows, and then he starts the lonely trail home. 

*


	2. Words/Deeds

*

Simon hasn’t slept much since he woke in the treatment center, and he doesn’t sleep at all the rest of that night, doesn’t get any real rest until the dawn light is already coming through the curtains. He feels electric, full of charge, and if he lays still he can visualize the energized paths of his nerves that somehow gave him a reprieve and let him feel, for a few blissful moments, in a way he never had before, even when he was in his first life. 

A group has assembled in the sitting room when he finally emerges, mid-morning ( _Followers_ Kieren calls them, later. Fuck, they are aren’t they?). Simon feels like he’s floating, a warm, private buoyancy. He’s on fire with his message for the group, his gift for talk flowing like water, he’s heady with the idea of freedom, the release of shame. God, he feels awake, really awake, and the world _needs_ to follow him. When Kieren walks in and he’s still talking, Simon almost jumps out of his own skin, seeing him there, listening.

 _Ye fucking idiot_ , he thinks later, because Kieren knows exactly how to call him on his shit ( _"Seriously?"_ ), and he does. Makes him wonder at himself. He’s the only one Simon can remember who’s not fallen for it, and he’s been peddling this same shit for decades now. It strips Simon down to the bone that Kieren doesn’t buy it, that he insists there’s something more to Simon, more than the disciple, more than his message. Something Simon is not at all convinced of himself. 

Jesus, Simon wants Kieren to be right about him. 

*

The group members ( _followers_ ) disperse after another hour, and Amy skips off somewhere, charming a promise from both of them that they won't argue anymore, and suffocating them both in a group hug that is far more complicated than Simon expects. 

They are left alone then, Kieren taking up all the space on the sofa, right in the middle. Simon watches him from the doorway, watches his feet tapping, fingers fretting, eyes roving over Amy's Gran's decorating choices. He's just bared his soul to this man, declared himself willing to give him anything he wants. Simon has done a lot of unwise things in his past, but this is a new level of risk, one that makes him feel almost drunk. What the hell is he doing?

"I suppose this is when I should offer you something to drink," Simon says.

Kieren smiles and rolls his eyes, "Yeah, thoughtful, but no thanks."

"Haven't got anything in, anyway. Milk went sour in 2009." 

Kieren gives him a look. Simon hopes he's not imagining affection mixed with the gentle teasing. Kieren moves over on the sofa, tucks himself up against the far armrest, which Simon takes as an invitiation. He sits up on the opposite arm, feet on the cushion, facing Kieren. 

"Do you miss it?" Kieren asks. "Food, I mean."

Simon nods, he'd never mention it, but he dreams about food all the time. "Sushi. Really crisp chips. My mum's beef stew." Last one hurts.

"Lamb for me, with mint sauce," Kieren adds. "Mum made it for me, the night I got back. Thought the day couldn't get any worse." He's very far away, crammed into the corner of the sofa. Electrical sparks shimmer through Simon's nervous system. Kieren continues, talking down at the sofa cushions, "Sometimes, I just want a glass of water so much that I think I'll..."

Simon can't sit still anymore, he slides down onto the sofa and reaches for Kieren's hands, which are winding together anxiously in his lap. Kieren's voice drops away, and he looks at Simon then. Those big eyes. 

"I meant it, Kieren. What I said. Before." Simon can only hope that Kieren knows what he's talking about. He can't say it again. 

Kieran looks down, doesn't meet Simon's eyes, but takes Simon's hand in his and holds it tight. Simon can feel the pressure and shift of bones. 

"It's a lot, Simon." Their eyes meet then, so Simon nods. Listen. "Maybe we could start with something simple. Get to know each other, that sort of thing."

"Simple, yeah. Sure." Simon has lost track of the number of blokes he's fucked over the years, most only once, a few who stuck around a few weeks or months, but damn, he never once _got to know_ any of them. Not even Caleb. He's frozen in terror, completely out of his depth. Kieren is still holding his hand. "Like, what do you mean exactly?"

Kieren shrugs, looks to the ceiling, and when he finally asks, Simon thinks _he's wanted to ask this for a long, long time_. "You could...come home with me for lunch. Mum said to bring someone."

"You want me to meet your family?"

"Nah, never mind, it's not a good idea."

"I'll do it." He will. God, he wants to.

"Simon, no. You couldn't...you'd have to..." Kieren stops, and Simon can see him rearranging the words in his mind to get them to come out right. Simon wants to kiss him. Kieren lets go of his hand, stands up, then continues, "They haven't seen me without mousse. They'd be... uncomfortable. And so would you."

Simon doesn't even think. "I have mousse."

Kieren freezes, like he can't believe the words he's just heard (Simon can't either), he looks struck and possibly horrified, but slowly his expression softens, opens, and he says, "You'd do that?"

Five minutes ago, Simon would have thrown a punch at anyone who suggested such a thing. "Yeah. If you want." He stands. _I said anything._

Kieren presses his lips together and says, "All right."

Simon nods (fuck), squeezes Kieren's shoulder and then brushes by him towards his room, (double fuck, how do normal people dress?), and lightning strikes are firing under his cold skin. He shivers. "I'm not sure you really took in my message about being your true self, Kieren. Might have to work on that," hoping to make light as he retreats, trying figure out what he's just done.

"Maybe tomorrow," Kieren shouts after him.

*

Before he died, back when Simon's brain worked hard every day to convince him of the pointless emptiness of life, he'd only looked in mirrors when he absolutely had to. He would get overwhelmed by the feeling of being judged by his own face staring back at him. In this second life, he almost never has to look. His appearance is the same, regardless- hair never needs a trim, blemishes are there to stay. The prophet says that the most perfect reflection is the one in your mind, of your own beauty and uniqueness. Not much use for mirrors.

So now, after so long, Simon stares. He hasn't applied mousse in over a year, and it takes fucking forever. How do people do it, look at themselves for so long every day? He can hear Kieren pacing outside the door. 

The contacts, though. "My beautiful blue-eyed boy," Mum would say, even said the last time they spoke. Jesus.

He looks at himself. He never really looked like this in life, he knows, not with this hair and the ruddy skin and his eyes aren't quite right. But this is the face his mum and dad cried over (did they?) and laid to rest. The son who left home and came back a corpse. 

Simon knows why he's doing this, can hear that very why, fidgeting around and fretting in the corridor, but he has to close his eyes and steady himself, he's so out of balance. _The first shackle to cast off is shame._ My blue-eyed boy. Listen.

When Simon emerges, Kieren Walker looks at him like he makes sense, and kisses him, kisses the junkie, the disappointment, right out on the street, for anyone to see. 

*

Lunch is nightmarish. Simon sits in shock, wondering how he got there, what's holding him there, tries to stay focused on Kieren, tense and miserable at his side. And then he hears those words, the very one's he's been waiting to hear for weeks, the answer to everything, to all he's prayed for, worked for. _"The clock striking midnight, you're just standing there, no one else around..."_

Can't be. Kieren. Oh God.

*

Simon's been homeless, beaten, he's shot up with poisoned junk that almost killed him. He's woken up in strange beds not sure where he's been or what he's done for days. In New York, he was stabbed in the hand, during a robbery. He's died. He's been strapped to a table and cut open, just to see what would happen. Once, for some stretch of weeks, he was a ravenous killer. 

This is the most scared he's ever been.

He knows the name for what he's feeling, when he looks at Kieren, but he can't say it, even in his thoughts. His body is filled up with it, though, it is oozing out of his pores. 

_"The other graves were fine."_ It's too much. Kieren can't be everything (can he?), the savior of the undead, and Simon's savior too? It's too much. Simon walks a few steps behind him the entire return to the bungalow, after the blow up with Gary, because he just can't keep up.

Is this why he's been so drawn to Kieren? Because he knew, somehow, that he was the one? It doesn't feel like that, though, feels...personal. Not mystical. But maybe? 

Kieren, for his part, is not acting like a holy object of worship, which helps. He's muttering and cursing, kicking things (fences, mostly), running a little, his hobbling, stiff-legged run, and not looking round to see if Simon is following. 

Amy's not home when they get back, thank Christ. Kieren dashes into the house as soon as Simon gets the door open, still not talking, not looking. Simon walks in slowly, drops his coat on the sofa. Kieren's not in the room. Simon follows, he's feeling a bit unhinged. Something's happening.

Kieren is sitting on Simon's bed (oh, God), looking at himself in the mirror, throwing off waves of rage, his quiet, complacent Kieren. Simon can only stare. 

Kieren has laid Simon bare before, with his words, his doubt, but now he literally strips Simon down, in silence, rises up and wipes his face clean, an intimate, intense apology that Simon absolutely does not deserve. Kieren doesn't stop, works at his throat, shoulders, reveals all of his pale skin, slides Simon's cardigan to the ground, unbuttons his shirt, runs his cleansing hands across his belly. _Jesus Christ._ Simon has to close his eyes at Kieren's sharp intake of unneeded breath, when he slides Simon's shirt all the way off and discovers the wound on his back. 

Kieren steps back then, like he's trying to decide something, grinding Simon up in his gaze, and there are still no words to say, Simon can't think of a single one. Without warning, Kieren steps close and kisses him, and Simon wakes up, kisses back, hard pressure, eyes open, to be sure they can both feel it. 

It's frantic then, for several long minutes, tugging out of clothes, and lurching around the room, banging into furniture. Odd, with the lack of sensation in Simon's cold skin, how much he can still feel, the shocks and strikes, and the memory of touch, and the churning, overwhelming giddiness of intimacy. 

They both have to sit, eventually, on the edge of the bed for a moment, to remove their shoes. It takes forever, and Simon looks over at Kieren, wrangling his boots, and their eyes meet, and Kieren gives him a look, (they are ridiculous) and starts to laugh. And Simon smiles, and then laughs too, (because it's hilarious, they are hilarious and dead and half-naked and sitting on a cot) and in all of his many, many fucks, he's never laughed with anyone. He can't remember when he last laughed, at all. 

They're reinventing here, the old methods don't work anymore. Kieren's pale skin goes on for miles, Simon tries to touch every part of it with his own, match them up, limbs, and hips, and useless cocks, to run his hands everywhere, while Kieren can watch, so he can remember, remember how touch feels. They wrap themselves up together, as tight as two bodies can fit, trying. 

Suddenly, right in the middle of it all, Simon realizes he really wants to be wrong about Kieren, wrong that this glorious body surrounding him is the first risen. He knows what comes with that- reporting in, instructions from the prophet, plans set in motion- sharing him. He won't just be Simon's anymore, and Simon doesn't want to share, he's not in a sharing mood. 

Later, after a long time, days maybe, Simon's lost track, Kieren has Simon pinned, lying on him with his full weight, holding him by the wrists, pressing him down with an endless kiss (Simon's slowly suffocating, who cares, doesn't need to breathe). There's a shift, Simon can feel it like an electrical pulse that runs through them both, a rapid change in mood, and Kieren suddenly releases Simon, is up on his knees like he's been shocked, his face twisted in agony. He lets out a long, low groan that rises to a shout, pain and rage, slams his fists into the pillow by Simon's head, again and again, screaming. Simon moves out of the way, let's him, tries not to react, to push back. So much pain.

"I want to feel it, Simon. I need to. Jesus. _Fuck_." Another deep loud moan, primal. Simon lays a hand on Kieren's back, Kieren collapses back onto Simon's skin. God, he's beautiful.

Simon can only wrap his arms around, tight, and whisper, "You can. You feel it. I feel it," over and over until the firestorm dies down and Kieren calms in his arms. 

*

They fall asleep for a while, a couple of hours. 

When Simon wakes, Kieren is still curled up against his side, and Simon never wants to move again. 

Now, though, it's time to think. 

First risen. Christ. Right here, naked and pressed against him. The most special, the one to save the redeemed from all of the shit and persecution and horror. The one to make them whole again, make them right. _Make him right._ As much as he talks shit, Simon truly, deeply believes this. He lets that belief wash over him. Rest in him. There will be a better day.

He stares at Kieren's face, wiped free of mousse, clean and beautiful, wants to do everything for him, all at once, fix the world. Simon let's himself think that word he feels, for the first time. He thinks it privately, deep deep in his mind. Because he knows now, he has to share, he can't keep him a secret. 

Simon quietly, gently eases out of bed and pulls on some clothes. He won't be gone long. He has a phone call to make.

*


	3. Life/Afterlife

*

Kieren is still asleep when Simon returns, sprawled across the tiny bed. Simon is overwhelmed, wants to strip back down, climb back in, stay there all night. But he's set events in motion now, can't afford to make a mistake. Instead, he lets the bedroom door quietly latch behind him and gets to work writing a few simple messages to leave with Zoe. He won't be away long.

Eventually, Simon hears the click of the door opening. Kieren peeps his head around the corner. Simon looks up, sees him (so beautiful), smiles, shakes his head a little (Jesus, that really happened). Then Simon looks closer. Kieren's dressed, and his expression is poorly masked panic. Shit.

"Hey," Simon tries. "You okay?"

"Where's Amy?" Whispered, so quiet.

"Don't know. She's not home yet." Odd, really, now Simon thinks about it. 

A little of the tension eases out of Kieren's face, but he doesn't move any further into the sitting room. It's quiet for a minute. Then, "I thought you'd gone." 

It strikes Simon for the first time that Kieren may not have done this before, woken up in someone else's bed. "Didn't like to wake you."

Kieren nods. He's clinging to the door frame like it's holding him up.

"Hey, hey." Simon rises, crosses the space between them in three long strides, cups Kieren's face in his hands, kisses him. Kieren's hands come up and grab Simon's wrists, and it's a feeling, but it's still not enough. Never enough.

Kieren pulls away after a moment. "I have to..." He's still got hold of Simon's wrists, and Simon still has hold of Kieren's jaw. Kieren swallows, gets his words out. "When I'm not there, when he doesn't know where I am...he thinks..."

"Who?"

"Dad."

"You need to get home."

Kieren nods. Simon cannot fathom how beautiful he is. First risen.

It only occurs to Simon after he's watched Kieren disappear down the road that he should have told him he was going to be away for a day. 

*

Morning. Second day in a row with mousse and contacts, after the year without. Simon takes a long time at the mirror, glad of the practice the day before, doesn't want to be stopped on the way. He looks hard, tries to see what Kieren sees. Can't. _Not yet_ he thinks.

His forged papers work, he catches the earliest train. All of their efforts, all of the hope and struggle, all of the lost lives. It's finally going to happen, the dream of second rising, of being whole. Right. 

Simon watches the blur of the wilderness fly past him, and imagines Kieren's pale skin under his fingertips. 

*

There's a moment, just after the glow of Julian's welcome, just before the prophet starts to speak in the video, when Simon thinks _My god, it's happening. I've done it. I've earned my right to happiness, I've made my people proud, and it's not talk, not bullshit. It's real._ And he thinks of Kieren, stubborn, angry, beautiful Kieren, and he swears he feels his heart. 

Then the prophet starts speaking.

*

Simon realizes his mistake, hours later, while crouched in the corner of an anonymous hotel room unable to move, his arms wrapped hard against himself, a package of murder weapons staring at him from the bed. He'd forgotten the basics: he is dead, he wasted a pointless, empty life, and then he died. He's a murderer. He doesn't deserve happiness, forgiveness, hope. Simon had simply forgotten what he had been sure of before; he is dead, and this is Hell. 

He's stuck in a replay loop. Norfolk: Hell. His family: Hell. The memories flood back. How had he forgotten? Only two things in this world ever made perfect sense- the ULA, and Kieren. And now one has demanded he destroy the other. So: Hell. 

_This isn't real,_ his moldy brain plays on repeat. _This is punishment._

Maybe this has all happened before? Perhaps his Hell is to relive this over and over? Maybe he's already made this choice (kill someone he loves/betray the prophet) already, many times, and then the entire scenario resets and he wakes to find himself strapped to the grating at Norfolk all over again? Or maybe he only gets this one chance. Maybe if he chooses correctly, he gets out? 

Simon remembers the way he felt as Julian embraced him that first day, welcomed him in as a disciple, gave him a place in this new world. Remembers that calm, that peace. God, he wants that again. That crystal clear purpose. He remembers Nate, and how he's dead now, killed after the attack he led on the train. Nate never veered from his goal, and it had all made sense to Simon, had seemed beautiful, important. Everything had made sense, until Kieren. 

Simon looks in the mirror for a long time. This is Hell, so what do the demons have in mind for him?

*

In the depths of that long night, Simon lets himself remember his darkest secret, the one he never even allows himself to think. That he doesn't actually love who he is, isn't proud of how he looks or what he says. He hasn't thrown off the shackles of shame, he hasn't thrown off the shackles of shite. That he still dresses and lives like a homeless drug addict because that is what he is, what he'll always be. His deepest truth is that he doesn't want to be part of any glorious rebirth of the redeemed, doesn't want a second rising, doesn't want any of this. 

He just wants to be cured. That's all he's ever wanted. The rest is just the best he can do with his second choice. 

*

Simon catches the early return train in the morning, because he's meant to, he has the ticket in his pocket.

Some sort of programming, some auto-pilot, has kicked in and taken over for him. Sometime in the early hours before dawn, he resigned himself to this Hell where he's been commanded to kill Kieren, because that's what he has to do. Now that he's remembered where he is, he just lets go. Maybe he won't even have to make a choice. Maybe in Hell, all the hard choices are made for you?

The _followers_ are waiting for him at the bungalow, but Simon hardly sees them. They are a complication when he just needs this to be simple. 

It's odd, surreal, to see Kieren ( _long limbs wrapped around him, trying so hard to feel, was that just two days ago?_ ) through this hazy lens, getting dragged from his house, hands tied. Simon knows he should react to this, should care, one way or another, but this is Hell; there is no feeling. 

He follows at a distance, the saw heavy and sharp in his pocket. 

*

When it all finally goes down, there's a smell (clean, wet grass) and a sensation (cool stone, wet knees, soft soil, hard edge of a knife) right before Simon breaks the spell, right before he grabs the knife blade from his throat and runs harder and faster than he ever has in his life. Everything feels very real, suddenly: solid, earthy. 

Later, he tells Kieren's family _Reflex_ , and it is, but it is also inevitable, the only actual answer to his dilemma that makes any sense, Hell or not. Whatever the second rising is going to be (whoever, whatever) it isn't going to be a cure, and Hell has seemed a hell of a lot more managable since he met Kieren. Simon is not sure at what point in his dilirium of memory he had realized this, that the clear and simple answer, the easy path to salvation is _don't kill Kieren_. Watching Kieren fight the drugs trying to burrow into his system, watching him conquer his instinct to kill his father (do what Simon wasn't strong enough for, in life or death) there's nothing to do but protect him, forever.

He tries to tell Kieren, at the clinic, what he's learned, starts to try and untangle the knot, but then there are shouts at the door, and Amy (Jesus, _Amy_ ) bloodied and limp, and he never gets to finish his confession.

*

"I miss her." Kieren, walking away from the gravesite, shoulder to shoulder with Simon, more than Simon deserves.

"She wouldn't want us to be sad."

"She would, a little. She'd like it of one of us needed a fainting couch when we're overcome."

"Don't make me laugh, Kieren. It's not decent."

"It's in her will."

"Jesus, Amy." Simon shakes his head, takes Kieren's hand.

"Simon, she..."

Kieren's voice drops off suddenly, and he leans his head on to Simon's shoulder, and Simon just holds him there, doesn't let go.

*

Back at the bungalow, later. It's been the longest week in Simon's life of long, arduous weeks, best and worst all concentrated into one. So much decided, so much unknown, but here, for a brief moment, he is completely calm. He's staying here, trying to make a home for himself, facing the demons. Kieren's here.

They've settled onto the sofa, Kieren leaned up against Simon's side, head on his chest, and Simon's arm around him, pulling him close. It's quiet, peaceful. Simon is amazed, once again, at this miracle.

"Simon?" Kieren's voice is quiet and sleepy, private. Simon loves it.

"Hmm." 

"Before. When you were gone. Where did you go?"

Simon has been distracted, distraught, scared. He's forgotten this question is still unanswered. There's no easy response. In the long silence that follows, all he can think to say is, "Do you think we might be in Hell?"

Kieren shifts a little. "Hell?"

Simon lets his fingers linger in Kieren's hair, imagines how it feels. "That we're really dead, we never came back, this is the afterlife, and we're in Hell."

Kieren sits up, looking more awake than he has all day. He shifts over on the sofa and looks back at Simon with perfect incredulity. "Um, no."

"Isn't it possible?" 

"No."

"How do you know?"

"Well, I'm not sure I can prove it, but I'm fairly certain in Hell everyone has little devil horns." He makes little horns with his fingers. "And aren't there meant to be fiery pits and things?"

"Don't tease." Simon suddenly needs to know, really know, what Kieren thinks. 

Kieren steadies his face, leans over and puts a hand on Simon's, where he can see it. "You believe this?"

"Sometimes."

Kieren peers at him, his expression gentle, giving his hand a squeeze (God, Simon can feel it today). "You think we met each other in Hell?" Their eyes lock, linger. Kieren nudges Simon in the shoulder. Once. Twice. Simon shakes his head, can't stop a smile. Ridiculous.

"No."

Kieren settles back against Simon's shoulder. "No. Right. There you go. It's not all or nothing all the time, Simon."

Not Hell. The world tilts on its axis just a bit. Simon leans his head back against the sofa cushions, closes his eyes. Just life, just glorious, horrible life. Simon didn't know how to face it the first time round, but he thinks he might be getting it this time, at last. _Not all or nothing._ Not Hell. Not Heaven. Kieren's not everything. Simon's not nothing. Just life.

They rest together for a long while. The shadows get long, and no one turns on a light. Kieren's body is heavy on Simon's, and Simon just let's himself feel it, feel it with every cell, all the pain, all the joy, feel it in every bone. 

*


End file.
